SOURCE: “Reading ‘The Golden Key’: Narrative Strategies of Parable,” in For the Childlike: George MacDonald's Fantasies for Children, The Children's Literature Association and The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1992, pp. 99-109.

In the following essay, Marshall discusses the ways in which MacDonald's pilgrimage plot contributes to the loose form of “The Golden Key.”

“The Golden Key” is regularly recognized as George MacDonald's masterpiece in the fairy tale mode. The work may not be, however, without its problems for modern readers, who may question the integrity of the tale's structure. “The Golden Key” seems, for example, repeatedly to be on the verge of concluding. It opens with the boy Mossy's desire to find the golden key at the end of the rainbow; he shortly discovers the key, and “the quest seems accomplished, the story over” (Wolff 135). Mossy must, however, discover the key's purpose, so his quest is renewed. Meanwhile the girl...